Do you need to know your child’s reading comprehension level but don’t want to stress your child out with a test? Here in Autismland, the answer is narration. Using different levels of narration depending on the child helps us determine whether or not the children are understanding what’s happening in the reading.
Narration is the ability to tell back a story’s main points after either reading it yourself or having it read to you. It’s a process that enables your child with autism to take what he has heard or read,process it, then organize it in his brain enough to tell it back. It helps with processing speed, organizing thoughts, as well as articulation. All of these habits, help with far more than reading comprehension. It’s a phenomenal indicator of listening skills, executive function (the ability to organize your thoughts) and speech.
There are three levels to narration: oral, picture and written. There is no time limit or age requirement for each level either. The child simply moves up to the next level when he masters the previous one. You can use several indicators for progression to the next level such as their proficiency in organizing the story and remembering the key elements (who, what, when, where, and how).
Oral Narration For Reading Comprehension
Start by reading one or two sentences then have the child tell you what they heard. As they get good at that, you gradually increase the amount being read to a paragraph, a page,then a chapter. Regardless of what they are narrating, the passage is only read once. This helps them foster the habit of focus and attention to detail.
JoJo was a little different from the other two in that he came directly out of public school in the age of teaching to the test. He didn’t know how to think for himself or find pertinent information only reading a passage once. Narration was really hard for him. He was used to teachers repeating themselves as well as being given the answers to regurgitate back to the teacher. He didn’t understand the concept of reading for information. His progress was painstakingly slow to be brutally honest.
Picture Narration For Reading Comprehension
Picture narration is always the next step after oral narration. Your emphasis remains on the ability to tell back key elements of the story. At this stage, your child should be able to listen to at least a chapter at a time before drawing a picture to narrate. I have them orally narrate their picture to me in order to make sure they really are understanding it as well. Plus, what child isn’t excited to talk about something they just drew to anyone who will listen?
This step serves many purposes. It builds upon the one step oral narration. You can’t do picture narration without having mastered oral narration. You can’t move on to written narration without having mastered picture narration. Each level builds upon the previous one.
Picture narration requires the child to organize his thoughts about the passage then organize them into a picture. This is a big deal for executive functioning skills. Plus, it builds new neural pathways on the right side of the brain which helps with flexibility and creativity. These are normally areas of the brain that are undeveloped in our kids with autism. These level may go slower than the previous one so take your time here. Even slow progress is still progress.
Written narration for reading comprehension
As you enter the middle school years, you start to expect them to write what they know about the story. It can begin with a sentence or two from picture narration then culminating with entire papers in the final high school years. The key here is that this is not the time to work on writing fundamentals.
For beginning students don’t even look at their narration until after they have read it out loud to you first. This helps the focus to be on putting their words to paper first and foremost since that is goal number one. That is the bulk of their learning for that reading. It also helps them pick up on errors before you see it.
Don’t correct these narrations. Use them as reference for what to select for copywork and dictation. Focus on common misspellings, missed punctuation, etc. that you see regularly occurring. Once they have been doing them for at least a year, have them select one or two a term at first, building to monthly in upper years, to spruce up and edit to teach those skills.
Since I have an artsy girl and a visual learner boy, I started with asking them to do a picture narration along with a sentence to go with it. As they started to feel more competent in that, I gradually withdrew the picture part to just a paragraph. They still do a picture with sentences in their nature journals. It helps Logan work on right brain processing while allowing Madison to express her creativity. Both kids are left handed making that the strongest side of the brain. We have long speculated though that Madison mimicked her older brother when learning which hand to use for eating and writing.
Don’t rush to this level before your child is ready. What you will get is a child who stares at the paper intimidated by it. This makes him unable to come up with a paragraph or even a few sentences. They become overwhelmed by the blankness of the paper. Also, use adaptive technology if your child needs it. We are here to make them successful. Necessary supports do just that for our kids.
Couple of things to remember for all the levels of narration. Not all readings need a written or even an oral narration. I like to pick and choose which ones I require them on as to keep the children guessing when doing their readings. The point isn’t to bog them down with work. It is to gauge whether they are understanding the readings. Never assign work just for work sake. That defeats the purpose and will kill the love of learning fast. Busy work doesn’ t belong in anyone’s homeschool.
Want more narration ideas? Follow my Pinterest board, Homeschool Narrations, for inspiration!
